


Distant Memories

by Killedbycroc



Category: All Time Low
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killedbycroc/pseuds/Killedbycroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'd lost my memory, and even though I wasn't so desperate to get it back, everyone was forcing me to remember, which didn't always work out for the best...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distant Memories

  Cautiously I stared around where I was, making sure that there wasn’t another soul in sight; I didn’t want to deal with people, not now after everything had changed. The place where I was currently hiding… I wasn’t sure where it was, but it was near the beach, and I remember that I definitely liked the beach. Which was about the only thing I could remember lately.

  Even though it was overcast and it was threatening to rain heavily, I stood my ground, looking out over what felt like the rest of the world. Everything that had happened lately was nearly impossible to comprehend, and it really felt like I had lost the person that I really was...

 

  _All I was aware of was people rushing around me, none of them stopping for anything less serious than someone having a heart attack. For about three days now I had been stuck in this stupid hospital, not being able to do anything for myself, and it was starting to drive me crazy. Then some nurse came in and told me a few friends were coming to visit – she didn’t understand why I stared blankly at her. Was it sad to think of that as the highlight of my day? Maybe, but it wasn’t like anything better was going to come along anytime soon._

_Soon enough, the time came around for visitors, and almost instantly, a brightly orange-headed person raced into the room and wrapped their arms around me, squeezing me until I could barely breathe. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen you in nearly a week!!!” Nervously, I patted them on the back, unsure of what I should, or would, have done._

_“Soph,” a male voice called from the background, “let her go.”_

_“Oh, right.” Deflated, Soph removed her arms from me and moved back, giving me a bit of breathing space. “Sorry, I forgot about the amnesia..."_

_“It’s okay,” I awkwardly replied, noticing that there was now another two people in the room – one was a girl with short brown hair, and the other was a guy with black hair. Neither of them were recognisable to me._

_“Well,” Soph continued to talk, “let me introduce ourselves. I’m Soph, your best friend, the other girl is your friend Jodie... and the guy is Craig, your boyfriend.” Jodie stayed where she was and shyly smiled at me, whereas Craig was braver and came to sit next to me on the bed._

_“What happened to you babe?” His breath stunk of alcohol, and it was all that I could do to not gag at the smell of it. Staring at him, he realised his own answer. “Oh. Did you forget that as well?”_

_“I kinda forgot everything. It’s what happens when you get amnesia.” From the corner of my eye, I could see Soph trying not to laugh at it, but I was struggling to see what was so funny about it._

_“You think I don’t know that?! I’m not stupid!” His sudden change in temper almost scared me, so much so that I think I actually shrunk away from him. “...I’m sorry Emii, it’s just this is a lot to deal with, and you’ll have to understand that it’ll take me a bit of time to come to terms with this all.”_

_“What, and you don’t think this isn’t hard for me? I don’t know_ any _of you, and yet you’re all supposedly some of the most important people in my life! I’m sorry, but I think I’ve got it harder than you.”_

_“Please,” Craig tried to bargain with me, taking hold of my hands, “don’t be angry with us. We only want to make sure that you get better.”_

_It didn’t take a genius to realise that this guy was as slimy as a frog. Ripping my hands away from him, I pulled my knees up to my chest. “I think you should all go now. And please don’t come back.”_

_Shocked faces rippled through all of them, but surprisingly it was Soph who looked most hurt by this statement. “Okay then Emma. But if you want to see us, then just call. All our numbers are in your phone, okay?” I didn’t even acknowledge her, and just watched as they left one-by-one through the door, taking with them any chance I had of understanding my previous life._

 

  Bringing myself back to reality, I watched as the waves furiously crashed against the shoreline, washing away everything that stood in its path. The hardest part about everything was that I could remember all the basic things – walking, talking, eating – but ask me about my favourite song or what I hated at school, and it felt like I was being asked about the meaning of life.

  By now, the first few raindrops had started to fall, which felt good against the exposed skin on my arms – the coolness of them radiated all over my body. I didn’t care whether I got a cold or whatever, I was ready to live my life again. To be honest, when I thought about it, it was like I had been given a second chance at life, to make up for whatever mistakes I had previously made...

  “Hi.” The voice behind me made me jump, making me feel like my thoughts had now become not-so-private.

  Turning around, I saw a guy with brown hair wearing a vest and shorts standing a couple of metres away from me. “Hey,” I replied, not really knowing what else to say to someone that I didn’t know.

  “Mind if I join you?” Moving closer to me before I’d answered the question, I noticed a couple of tattoos on his chest, but the one that most caught my eye was the one that was sort of shaped like a star – something about it seemed very familiar to me...

  “Sure,” I shrugged, trying, but failing, to keep my attention on the waves below. For a couple of moments we stood silently, admiring the view that was below us.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Am I supposed to?” Yet again, it turned out he was somebody that I was supposed to know, somebody that was meant to mean something to me.

  “Well you knew me, if that’s what you meant. My name’s Zack.” He held out a hand to me, which gave me chance to take notice of his rippling biceps. Yep, I was almost certain he was my type.

  “I’m Emma,” I said as I shook his hand. “Oh, wait, you already knew that.”

  “Yeah, kind of.” Laughing, he took his hand back. “You know everyone’s worried about you.”

  “Well it hasn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs for me either,” I muttered, hoping somehow that my words would get lost against the wind.

  “Ever thought that being around them could help you?”

  I shook my head. “I just need to find out who I am first before I try to fit everything else into place, then I can concentrate on them. Anyway, why are you here?”

  “You obviously don’t remember then. This is where I come whenever I get stressed or whatever. I was arguing with some of my friends about... stuff.”

  “But why the beach?” I asked him.

  Smirking, he answered me. “It’s one of the songs that my band wrote, one of your favourite songs actually, so coming here always reminds me of what my life’s really about.”

  “Wait, you’re in a band?”

  “Yep,” the grin on his face spread further. “I play bass. Actually, the friends that I told you about are my band mates.”

  “Wow.” Trust me to know somebody as cool as that and not remember them!

  “Hey,” he grabbed my arm, “it’s raining pretty hard now. We should head inside before you get soaked through.” Following him, for the first time I noticed just how much rain was falling – I had become so caught up in the conversation that I had blocked everything else out. Of course, the only downside to my plan was that since I didn’t remember anything, I had to completely depend on Zack leading the way to which turned out to be his car. As he held the door open for me, I jumped inside, desperate to escape out of the rain.

  Once he was in the car as well, Zack didn’t turn the engine on, but just sat there, looking at me in a way that I could only describe as curious. “So what’s the plan then?”

  “There’s no plan. You can’t plan for life – how are you meant to know where you’re exactly going to be in five, ten, fifty years time? Or what happens if you wake up one day and you’ve forgotten everything and you’ve got to start over again? No, plans aren’t good for anything.” The words that he spoke were so meaningful and deep, like he really knew what I was feeling at that exact moment in time.

  “Well what are we going to do then, if there’s no plan?”

  “That’s the whole point,” he said, grinning at me the entire time.

 

  After watching the rain fall on the windows for some time, we somehow managed to decide on what to actually do next, which was going back to where Zack lived. Some people might have said I was being stupid for going somewhere which I had no idea about, but hey, it’s not like I had much idea about anything at the moment.

  It was about a five minute drive, filled with more questions from me about what my life used to be like. Turns out that I was crazy, had an obsession with oneshots, and would shoot somebody to get a piece of cake – clearly I wasn’t the most normal person in the world. Once he stopped the car, I got out, taking a moment or so to observe his house; to be honest, there wasn’t anything extraordinary about it, it was just a normal house. “Remember anything?”

  “No. I’m not even sure what I’m meant to remember anymore.” I could have sworn I saw his face drop, but if it did, it had disappeared before I had chance to notice it, and so we made our way inside. One of the first things that I noticed was a large pile of photos on a table in the corner of the room. “What are those?” I asked Zack.

  “A few photos. You can look through them if you want.” Leaving me on my own, I picked them up, being careful so as I didn’t smudge them. Going through them one-by-one, I only recognised myself, Zack, Sophie, and Jodie in the images, the other people still remaining as a mystery.

  “Why can’t I remember?” I muttered to myself, just as Zack entered again, holding two cups.

  “Here you go,” Zack said as he handed me a cup, “it’s Dr Pepper, your favourite.” For some strange reason, this made me feel like there was extra pressure on me to like the drink, but I accepted it anyway.

  “Thanks.” Taking a sip, I had a weird feeling wash over me, followed by a rush of what I guessed were… memories. “Wow, that was weird.”

  “What, what happened?” Instantly he sat down next to me, his face in a state of deep concentration.

  “I think… I think I remembered something.”

  “What did you remember?” His expression never changed.

  Struggling to reclaim it, I told him. “It was a couple of summers ago, before… before any of us had boyfriends or girlfriends to worry about, and we were all chilling in the park because we’d decided to have a picnic at the last minute, which meant that Jodie was worrying because she was missing work. There were cupcakes, but Soph accidently sat on them. She wouldn’t shut up about the frosting on her trousers.” He laughed at this, so I took it as a good sign that I was remembering it correctly. “And then the rest of our food got covered in Dr Pepper because of... Jack?”

  “Yeah,” he confirmed, “the idiot thought it would be funny to shake the bottle up and give it to you to open.”

  “And Rian wondered why we had nothing to drink!”

  “Then we got kicked out because Alex thought it would be a smart idea to bring alcohol...” I stopped remembering then.

  “Wait, who’s Alex?”

  “He’s the lead singer in the band.” Picking up one of the photographs that I had placed down, he pointed out a guy with fluffy brown hair, who also had his arm wrapped around Jodie. Clearly Zack noticed my confusion. “Yeah, they’re going out. Have been for about four months.”

  “They look really happy together,” I mindlessly murmured to myself.

  Putting the photos back onto the table, he turned back to me. “So do you remember anything else from that day?”

  “No... after the Dr Pepper incident, everything seems to fade away. At least it’s a start, right?” I was worried that my words didn’t sound so certain.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he dejectedly admitted, though I wasn’t sure why. “Want some cake?”

  “Sure.” As Zack headed out of the room again, I was left to wonder what else lay ahead of me to discover – and whether I would actually want to know about it.

 

  Once I had polished off three-quarters of the cake (Zack _was_ right, I did like cake a lot), I started to feel sleepy, and it was plainly obvious as I fell asleep on his shoulder about three times in a row. Even though it may not have bothered me so much, I think he was beginning to get a bit annoyed of the dead weight on his shoulder.

  “Do you want to sleep here tonight?” The bluntness of the question almost made me feel like I was being put on the spot a bit, and my face clearly must have shown this, causing Zack to explain his actions. “I didn’t mean it like that, definitely not – it’s just that I didn’t know if you had a place to stay or whatever... but obviously you must do because you don’t have a bag or any clothes with you or anything...”

  “Maybe that’s because I don’t remember where I live.” Saying that made me feel so stupid, like I was hungover or having a really blonde moment.

  “Well I can take you to your house if you want...”

  I interrupted him, knowing that he wasn’t going to get the hint anytime soon. “Can I stay here tonight? I don’t want to be on my own at the minute.”

  “Sure, that’s fine. You can have my bed and I’ll sleep down here.” He got up and walked over to the stairs, but I stopped him before he could go any further.

  “Oh what, you think I’m unable to go for one night on a couch?”

  “No, I _know_ you can’t go one night on a couch, because in the morning you’re complaining like a bitch about it to everybody you see within the first four hours of waking up,” he said with a smug grin on his face.

  “I promise I won’t! I’m a changed person, remember?” I know I had him there, and it was clear Zack did too, as he sighed and gave in.

  “Fine then, but one word from you in the morning, and there will be no cake for you for an _entire_ week, understood?” My God, he really was a hard man to bargain with!

  “Didn’t I just say that I promised not to?” Grinning at him, it was infectious, as he chuckled quietly to himself before heading up the stairs. When he had gone from sight, I picked up the photos again, leisurely glancing through them. However, one thing became apparent to me, and I was definitely going to have to ask Zack about it.

  Moments later, there were footsteps at the top of the stairs, and he appeared once more. “Um, I wasn’t sure what kind of blanket you wanted, so I grabbed a couple for you.” But I just ignored that and asked him what I needed to.

  “How come Craig’s not in any of these pictures?” In an instant, his eyebrows scrunched together, and even though it was adorable, it didn’t take a genius to work out that something wasn’t right.

  “How do you know about Craig?” Zack’s voice sounded like it was a life or death matter, what my answer was.

  “He came to visit me in hospital...” I paused for a second, trying to figure out what the right words would be to say next, “but he really seemed over-clingy and just generally... creepy.”

  Lightly sighing, he placed everything he was holding at the end of the couch and knelt down in front of me. “You and Craig were together, but then it turned out that he’d gotten some girl pregnant while you two were pretty serious, and you chucked him out and refused to speak to him ever again. He didn’t leave you alone though, and in the end you had to get a restraining order on him... which means that we should actually call the police if he visited you in hospital.”

  “No,” I shook my head, “he wasn’t harassing me then... but why would Soph and Jodie let him come to see me then?”

  His eyes widened massively. “Wait, they were _there_?” I nodded, unsure of whether this was the correct answer to give him. “Why the _fuck_ would they do that?! They know better than anyone else the amount of crap that he’s put you through...” Standing up, Zack began to walk over to where his phone lay.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling them to ask what the fuck they’re playing at.” His fingers smashed down on the keys furiously.

  I got up, trying to stop him. “Don’t do that now, leave it for the morning when we’ve all got clear heads, before we go diving in without thinking things through.” My words obviously confused him, and I don’t blame him because they confused me as well, but it seemed to work, and he stopped dialling the number.

  “Okay, you win Emma, but we’re still getting to the bottom of this.”

  “Fine, but we’re leaving it until the morning.” We reached gridlock with our conversation, leaving Zack to do the only thing possible in a situation like this – pick up a pillow and throw it at me. “It’s good to know what your maturity level is!” I called after him as he headed for the stairs; again, he quietly chuckled to himself.

  “Night Emma.”

  “Night Zack.” Turning off the light for the living room as he headed upstairs, I was left alone with my thoughts for what felt like the millionth time that day – I know I said I wanted to work things out before, but now I think there’s such a thing as thinking too much.

 

  All I did through the night was toss and turn, unable to get comfortable; I would have gone upstairs and asked Zack if we could swap, but I wasn’t so willing to give up the cake, and so resigned myself to a sleepless night. Luckily, morning came quickly, and so I was able to socialise with other people besides myself before my tiny brain exploded.

  Rushing upstairs so I could claim the bathroom, it turns out that I was actually going a bit too fast – and ended up crashing straight into a shirtless Zack who had just come out of the bathroom. “Whoa, sorry Emma, didn’t see you there...” The words just went over my head, however, as some other memory came back to me.

 

  _It was a beautiful night – the stars were as clear as anything, and for once, there weren’t any stupid screaming teenagers around to ruin this perfect scene. For a bit, everyone hung out, just talking and laughing and stuff, but soon enough they all disappeared, one-by-one, until it was just me and Zack left. Not that I minded or anything, because I had a good feeling about what was going to happen next._

_“So,” Zack whispered seductively into my ear as he wrapped his arms around my waist, “what do you want to do now?”_

_“I don’t know,” I replied, using the same tone as he did. “Maybe we could just stay out here for a bit and see what happens.”_

_“Oh, so you want to play it that way, do you?”_

_“Are you accusing me of playing games with you, Zachary Steven Merrick?” Turning to face him, I couldn’t help but to smirk just the smallest bit, hardly daring to believe that we had already come this far in under a fortnight._

_He raised his eyebrows at me suggestively. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I just wanna see how dirty-minded you really are.” Letting go of my waist, Zack lay down on the ground, and signalled for me to join him._

_“So,” I said as I snuggled my head into his chest, “I’m guessing that you want to.”_

_“I don’t want to, Emma, I_ need _to, so I know that what I’m feeling isn’t just a really bad case of unrequited love or whatever,” he murmured as he lightly pressed his lips to my forehead, which just caused me to bury myself deeper into him._

_“Of course it isn’t. I thought you would have known that.” Lifting my head up, Zack placed an irresistibly delicious kiss on my lips, and then one thing lead to another..._

 

  “Emma?” Coming back to reality, I was still zoned out of my current surroundings, say, where my hands were currently placed (on Zack’s chest, before you start getting the wrong ideas). “Emma.”

  “...Me and you were together?”

  His face instantly changed, a look of what I could only describe as shock registered on his face. “Did you have another memory?”

  “Yeah, it was the first time that we...” Almost cautiously, he placed his arms around me, pulling me even closer into him.

  “Anyway, to answer your question, yes, we _are_ together.”

  “Wait,” I pulled away from him at that moment, “how can _we_ be together? At the hospital, Craig said he was my boyfriend.”

  Clearly this statement ruined the mood of the moment, as he broke any sort of connection between us, and was now storming down the stairs. Following him, I watched as he picked up the phone and started to slam the numbers in again. “Soph? Yeah, I need you to get round here now. Why? Well how about that little thing to do with Craig at the hospital... No, listen to me now, you and Jodie are going to get round here _right now_ and explain to me what the _actual fuck_ you two thought you were doing.” Obviously angry, he slammed the phone down onto the table, and took a moment or two to calm down before turning back to me. “I’m sorry you had to see that, it’s just... the amount of misery that guy has caused you in the past, I thought he would have learnt his lesson by now.” He walked past me to head back upstairs, needless to say to get dressed before Soph and Jodie came round.

  While Zack was getting dressed, I took the opportunity to use the bathroom, and I had only just finished putting the final touches on my make-up as there was a knock at the door. Standing at the top of the stairs, I spied on the conversation, feeling slightly scared to go downstairs. “So you made it then?”

  “Well you kind of didn’t give us a say in the matter,” Soph glared at him as both her and Jodie came through the door.

  “Fine then, tell me why you let Craig tell Emma that bullshit then. This should be good to hear.”

  “He blackmailed us, okay?! He said that if we didn’t go along with his plan, then he’d tell everyone our secrets.” Jodie remained quiet throughout all of this, staring intently at the floor.

  “But you don’t have any secrets from us...”

  “These are the ones that nobody else at all should know about.” The tension in the room was almost unbearable, and I wasn’t even there technically! Deciding enough was enough, I headed downstairs to join them. “Oh, hi Emma, we didn’t know...”

  “Whatever you’ve been saying can be said with me here – I am part of this problem after all.” A couple of nervous glances were shared between them, but eventually they caved in, and Soph sat down.

  “So, what exactly did he find out then?” Zack questioned them both; neither of them was willing to answer. “You’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later, you know.”

  “I can’t,” Soph’s hoarse voice cracked under the strain. “You’d never forgive me for what I did.”

  This was clearly starting to get on Zack’s nerves now, as he sighed heavily. “Fine. What about you Jodie?”

  “It’s embarrassing,” she said, never taking her eyes off the floor, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks...

  “Oh my God, you think Zack’s hot!” As soon as I blurted the words out, I placed my hand over my mouth, realising that now probably wasn’t the best time to have said it.

  “What?” Clearly catching him off-guard, his attention diverted away from what he was doing before, and was now staring at Jodie, eyes open as wide as they could be.

  “Um, yeah.” Her eyes became even more glued to the floor, if that was possible.

  “Wait,” I said to her, “why’s that bad though?”

  “Because.”

  “Because...?”

  “Firstly,” Soph took over at this point, “she was deathly afraid that you would decapitate her for even remotely having thoughts like that about your boyfriend, and then she was also worried about what Alex would say if he ever found out about it.”

  It was obvious that I still had a lot of remembering to do, but I went and gave her a hug nevertheless. “Aww, you don’t need to worry about that, I’m sure everything will be fine, I promise you.”

  “No,” she shook her head, tears forming at the base of her eyes, “he’s really paranoid about this sort of thing, and if he finds out, it’ll just make it worse because he’ll think it’s true.”

  “Not to mention the fact that you’re both friends with the guy that you’ve just admitted that about.”

  “Do you _really_ think that’s going to help here Soph?” I snapped at her as I continued to comfort Jodie, the odd tear beginning to fall. And this wasn’t helped further when there was another knock at the door.

  “Who’s this now?” Zack complained as he opened the door, letting in Jack, Rian, and Alex. “Why the hell are you lot here?”

  “Believe it or not,” Jack answered, “I kinda get curious about what you want when you’re shouting down the phone at my girlfriend at nine in the morning.”

  Alex, now in the living room, came over to where I was once he’s seen Jodie crying. “Hey, what’s wrong?” She tried to answer, but by now more tears were flowing, which made talking nearly impossible. Instead, I let him take over my place, before heading over to Zack.

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked him.

  “Honestly? I don’t know. But I still think the right thing to do is go to the police about this...”

  “No, I don’t think anybody wants that.” In my mind, I quickly came up with a distraction that was sure to work. “Why don’t we all go somewhere, to take our minds off of this?”

  For a moment or two, he eyed me suspiciously, and I was worried that he’d seen through my plan almost immediately. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to go out anywhere, not if Craig’s... but we can all hang out here or something for the day?”

  “Sure,” I accepted the compromise. “Oh, but can I go home first? I want to change out of these clothes.”

  “I’ll take you!” Soph chirped up from the background.

  “Okay then.” I slid on my shoes, and, following Soph, headed out of the door, a strange feeling that I was being watched hanging over me the entire time.

 

  I was unbelievable relieved to be able to escape the tension that was slowly but surely building up in the house, plus it also gave me time to try and get to know Soph a bit better too. As well as myself.

  “So,” I started off tentatively, “how did we become friends then?”

  She didn’t need any further prompting than that. “Well, you tried to steal my piece of cake about twelve years ago, and then we’ve been friends ever since. Mainly because I wanted that cake back from you, but still.”

  “Why am I so obsessed with cake?” I muttered to myself, causing Soph to laugh.

  “This is what we all wish we knew.” Stopping suddenly, I found myself gazing up at a pretty, but modest, house. “Yeah, so this is where you live.” Handing me some keys, I opened the door, having to wait for her to tell me where my room was. Quickly changing into the first clothes that I could find, I looked around my room, seeing that I had all the mandatory music posters and pictures of friends up – nothing that surprising. However, I became slightly confused when I noticed a jewellery catalogue on the floor.

  “What the hell is this doing here?” Picking it up and casually glancing through it, I stopped on the page titled ‘Rings’, where a whole bunch of scribbles covered the two pages. However, the one that really caught my eye was the only one that was circled...

  “How long does it take you to get dressed woman?” Soph yelled up to me, and for some weird reason, this unlocked yet another memory that was contained in my head.

  “Oh my God, Jack was going to propose to Soph.” I became lost in the memory, so desperately happy that more things were coming back to me, but when my door began to creak open, I shoved the catalogue as far under my bed as I could.

  “You ready Emma?” She suspiciously eyed me.

  “Yep, let’s go.” I left the house as fast as I could, not feeling safe in there for some weird reason.

  It only took us another two minutes to walk back to Zack’s place. “Wow, how come we live so close to each other?”

  “I don’t know, you just always seemed to look up to him and stuff, so when it was time for you to find your own place, you couldn’t bear the thought of being far away from him.” It sounded really sweet in my head, but... I don’t know, it kind of didn’t feel like something that I would do.

  As soon as we were back, we found out that everyone was in the back garden, seeing as it was such a nice day. When I’d sat down next to Zack, I rolled my trouser legs up, taking as much advantage of the sunny weather that I could. “Did you find everything okay?” I nodded, leaning back on the soft, dry grass. “So, what do you want to do then?”

  “Oh, so I can actually have a choice then, can I?” He couldn’t help but to smile at me, and that made _me_ feel better as well. “I think you know what I want to do.”

  “And what’s that?” Zack leaned closer into me, his soft, tender lips mere millimetres away from mine.

  Grinning seductively the entire time, I answered him. “I want to... I want to eat cake.”

  “Trust you to say _that_.” Jumping up, he headed inside, declaring to everyone else that he was getting cake – smiles spread across all their faces, except for Jodie’s. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you a cookie or something.”

  “Thanks,” she yelled from the comfort of Alex’s arms.

  Letting the warmth of the sun’s rays wash over me, I was completely oblivious to everything. That is, until, I heard something that sent a shiver down my spine. “What are you doing here, Emma?”

  Sitting bolt upright, I turned around, and found myself facing Craig. “I’m with my friends. Why, is there a problem with that?”

  “There is when I didn’t give you permission for it. Get up and come with me right now,” he barked at me, still managing to avoid detection from the others.

  “No,” I told him, my voice wavering slightly.

  “No? I don’t think that you realise just how foolish it is to say that to me.” Before I had time to comprehend what was happening, Craig had grabbed my shoulders, and was painfully trying to pull me to where he was currently stood – in my foolishness, I screamed, attempting to pull myself away from him, but it was all to no avail.

  It was at that moment that Zack came back outside, and I was the first thing that he saw. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing here Craig?” In an instant, everybody stopped what they were doing and turned round to look at us.

  “I’m just helping Emma to understand what’s right and wrong for her to do because, you know, she forgot and all.” His mouth was pulled back in a snarl, like he was ready to fight for me.

  “Did you get to the bit where you kept her trapped inside her own house for three days yet?” Obviously catching him off guard, Zack took the opportunity to remove me from Craig’s grip, making sure that I was as far away from him as possible.

  “Hey,” he reached out for me, but luckily I was nowhere close enough for him.

  “When are you going to stay the fuck away from her, huh? Did it not register in that thick skull of yours when she got a restraining order against you?” Both of them were just as worked up as each other, and I did not have a good feeling about what the outcome of it all was going to be like.

  “That was a mistake, and she knows it.”

  Zack wasn’t buying any of his bullshit. “Yeah, because this now is _really_ convincing her of that, isn’t it?” There was silence from Craig, but Zack was on a roll at the moment. “And if that wasn’t enough, you had to go to the hospital and pretend that you were her boyfriend, but obviously you had such little faith in your own plan that you had to go and blackmail two of my friends into lying to her!” I think everybody knew that that wasn’t a good move to make, and I could see that both Soph’s and Jodie’s faces were set in a state of shock.

  Taking a moment to calm himself, Craig addressed everyone. “Do any of you know what Sophie here got up to that night she said she was stuck at the airport overnight because she’d missed her flight?” Nobody knew what he was talking about – except Soph, of course – so all our eyes flickered between each other, confused.

  “Please don’t do this,” Soph begged him, but he wasn’t willing to listen, not now that Zack had pushed him too far.

  “Well,” he smirked evilly, knowing full-well the destructive power that his little piece of precious information was going to have on everybody, “there was never any evening flight – she lied, to all of you. There wasn’t even a photo shoot, which, if I’m not mistaken, is the reason she told all you gullible suckers she had to leave here so suddenly.”

  “Sophie...?” By this point, Jack was looking scared shitless, and I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be an over-reaction, not at all.

  Revelling in the pain he was causing, Craig twisted the knife even further. “Would you like to learn the real reason she went, now that I have you all on the edge of your seats?” Nobody dared utter a single word, frightened that it would cause him to lose control once again. “Turns out, she’d been keeping in contact with her dear old ex, Max.”

  Not even a second later, there was a horrendous _thud_ as Soph sunk to the floor, burying her head in her hands; Jack didn’t rush over to her as I’d expected, instead staying rooted to the spot. “Oh God, no,” she whimpered, knowing it was too late – and that worse was to come.

  “And the reason she rushed off so quickly? Little Maxy had been talking to her about how good they used to be together, and she just couldn’t resist that offer of one more night, one more chance to say goodbye to the past in only the way that she knows.” Each word was dripping in venom, striking deeper into our hearts than the last. Thinking he had finished, we all turned to stare at Soph, none of us willing to believe that she would have _ever_ done that in a million years.

  “Y-you don’t...” The words were trapped in her throat, but it didn’t matter, because Craig had his own final words to offer.

  “Oh, and the best bit? She was planning to do it all over again in a few weeks time.” With his snide laughter, all hell broke loose.

  “I _cannot fucking believe you_ ,” Jack snapped. “After _every single time_ you got pissed at me for talking to Holly, and then you go and fucking _sleep_ with your fucking ex? Did you think I was some sort of fucking idiot?”

  “I never... I never meant for it to get that far – I thought I was able to keep it under control...”

  “Yeah? Well save it for someone who actually gives a shit, because I’m fucking done with you.” As he stormed off with an ever-increasing rage, Soph struggled to get up off the ground.

  “Jack, wait, please!” She yelled after him, running blindly in the same direction he had just headed.

  Everything was happening at once, and I felt like I needed to help somehow. “Wait, Soph!” However, I was interrupted by one of the most sickening noises I had ever heard – it was like cracking, but there was a squelching as well. I spun my head around to the direction where the noise had come from as fast as possible, and was greeted with the horror of blood pouring from Zack’s face. He tried to retaliate, but Rian and Alex kind of got in the way, and started to drag Craig off. “Where are you taking him?” I yelled after them all.

  “It’s probably best that you don’t know,” Jodie told me. “You take a look at Zack, okay?” Before I had chance to respond, she was gone, and it was just me and Zack left, with him holding a hand to his face.

  “Okay then, let’s get you inside.” I followed behind him, so that I didn’t have to see more blood than was necessary. Forcing him to sit down, I got a damp tissue and began trying to clean up his face. “What the fuck did you think you were playing at?” I asked him, but not in a harsh way – it was more like telling him that he had been stupid.

  “Did you really _ow_ think that _ow_ I was going to let him get away with that all?” His face was in sheer agony, though something told me it wasn’t just the cuts and bruises causing him pain.

  “Didn’t you actually think he’d announce to us all what their secrets were?”

  “But I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, could I?”

  “Alright, I think that’s enough rhetorical questions for now.” After that, a few minutes passed where neither of us said anything, what with me concentrating on cleaning his wounds, and Zack hissing every time I touched a tender area.

  “You know,” he broke the silence, moving my arm away at the same time, “you know that you don’t have to be doing this.”

  I moved my arm back to its previous position. “Yes I do, otherwise your face isn’t going to look very nice, is it?”

  “But you don’t like other people’s blood.” I stopped what I was doing, and went to place the tissue in the bin. “Emma,” I heard my name being whispered into my ear, “you don’t know how useless I feel when I can’t protect you all the time.”

  “Well you shouldn’t,” I spun round to face him, not realising that tears were beginning to form in my eyes. “You tried your best.”

  “But it wasn’t good enough to stop him, was it?”

  “Zack,” I carefully put my hand on his cheek, “your best is always good enough for me.” Instead of saying anything back to me, he got a hold of my hand and moved it off of his face, all the while moving closer to me, before positioning his lips just a breath away from mine.

  “This, Emma-May Eardley, is why I love you.” It wasn’t a surprise when the next thing he did was kiss me; okay, so it was only very softly, but that was because he didn’t want to cause himself any more pain, and I was just fine with that. As long as I knew where I belonged, that was all that mattered to me.


End file.
